A twin of fate you will timely meet,
And tragedies suffer 'ere fate is complete.
An admission of love is the curse and the cure.
The reminder etched in your skin will endure.
The secrets that bind you shall only dissolve
by calamitous collapse and rival's resolve.
Help 'til the end, and find a blessed path;
refuse, and death cannot spare you from wrath.
Two children who should never be/pay for their fathers' lechery/and now must march toward obsequy.
So, to their will we acquiesce/but offer a means of egress/if their missteps you will redress.
Keep your word to prove your worth./Reach sixteen above the earth./Dissolve the bond which bans your birth.
By that day's end she must meet death/in hero's hearth take her last breath/and grant her soul the peace of Lethe.
Make right these wrongs and be reborn/a life without your parents' scorn/fail, and together ever mourn.
Previously, on TAC:
"While my enemies try to grow their numbers, I'm too busy preparing for war to conduct diplomatic missions myself. I think that your unique experiences make you a prime candidate to take on that task.[" Poseidon said. "]I want you to rally support for me among my people to counter my enemy's sabotage, and I want you to quash insurgency when it arises before it can harm my cause."
"[Oceanus] sent one of his soldiers with those snakes to make me an offer a couple of weeks ago. It seemed like our only option at the time. I won't fall victim to it again."
"Did he give a name?"
"Orin."
"Think of it like a superfood juice–it's got powdered seaweed in it that helps your body heal faster and build muscle. I use it after I work out."
"I do like to occasionally take an interest in half-bloods," Kook said. "I'm not ashamed of it. I like being a mentor... Just listen to me and do what I say, and I'll show you how to make it in Dad's kingdom."
[Poseidon] took out a digital green wristwatch from his pocket and fastened it around Percy's wrist... "This is a gift from me," he explained, "and it is also your greatest tool. In it, you will find everything you need to do this job."
She was giving him lessons in Russian, and he had to say, it was going pretty smoothly. He had never realized it, but he seemed to be a natural at learning languages. He didn't excel in reading or writing, of course, which is what prevented him from doing exceptionally in Chiron's Latin class (that, plus the history lessons), but listening and speaking seemed to be a piece of cake.
"The Salty Lass?" Percy echoed dubiously.
Prep laughed. "It's a bar underneath Dad's palace. We all meet up there a lot, too, but the palace servants also go there, so sometimes it's not great if we want some privacy."
"Really? It went that well?"
"Yeah!" Percy said enthusiastically. He had visited two towns on the edges of Atlantis as part of his first mission as his father's ambassador, and the trip had gone by without a hitch. "Calydon was overwhelmed by an avalanche of plastic waste, and Valeria was being terrorized by a sea serpent. I handled both issues for them, and they pledged their loyalty to D–to the king."
Atlas hesitated before speaking, looking at Percy with something like pity. "And what of the reports of this Orin fellow in the area?"
Shaking his head, Percy replied, "Oh, they assured me they didn't know anything about him. It makes sense, given what they were dealing with. I doubt he stopped in those towns."
Atlas sighed. "Be wary of people telling you what they know you want to hear, Perseus," he warned. "You must look past what they're telling you and surmise what actually happened."
"No, yeah, I know," he said, rubbing his arm. "I pressed them. I was thorough."
"And you're certain that Orin didn't visit those towns?"
"I don't think they were lying."
Atlas shared a glance with Delphin, Poseidon's top general and advisor. Delphin wore battle armor over his sleek dolphin body and had what seemed to be a glass eye on his left side, as well as a long, ragged white scar down his back.
Let us take heart, for now, he urged, and Atlas nodded thoughtfully, tapping the tiles that represented Calydon and Valeria on the enormous mosaic map of the kingdom on his war table. The tiles turned purple to his touch.
Percy was still breathtaken by the scope and grandeur of Atlas's inner sanctum, the epicenter of war intelligence in his father's land. The table-map of Atlantis was several meters long and wide, and unlike Kook's, it was also topographical. The round walls surrounding the chamber were covered with constantly running water, and the Governor would often conjure images of places and people within the kingdom inside the running water, almost like at Iris Message, though the scenes he would conjure were translucent and fleeting. Other than Triton, Percy found Atlas to be his most intimidating brother by far.
"Well done, Perseus," he said simply. "Keep what I said about the trading post in mind. When the times comes, your watch will alert you."
"Yes, sir," Percy said, bowing his head stiffly. Atlas furrowed his brow but spared him from comment about his awkwardness, dismissing him with a nod.
"I believe Azaes is expecting you," he added. "And, if I am not mistaken, I do believe there are a few eager hippocampi who have been waiting to escort you outside."
Percy marveled at Atlas's province as he rode through–the ornate buildings, the towering sculptures, the lilting street music. Some of the buildings seemed so old and ostentatious, he knew Annabeth would go crazy for them. The difference was stark as he crossed the border into Prep's territory; libraries and museums gave way to stadiums and concert halls. Halfway through his province, Percy gawked at what looked like a reverse swimming pool. There was a hollow, curved hole in the ground, but it was filled with air and sealed off from the water around it. Peering closer, Percy finally saw people inside it and realized what it was–a skate park.
Finally, Percy reached Kook's estate at the edge of his territory, and he knew exactly where to find him. The older boy let the barbell he was lifting clatter to the floor and gripped Percy in a massive, sweaty bear hug.
"There you are, Runt!" he exclaimed. "We've got a lot to cover today. First of all, we need to bulk you up a little bit. No protégé of mine is going to have noodle arms."
Kook made Percy try just about a million different exercises. Chest presses were still hard; squats were easier; ab workouts made him feel strong. Percy wasn't as good at the dumbbell exercises as he would have liked to be, but he found he was great at what Kook called "plyometrics."
Kook wouldn't let him drink water between exercises, calling that "cheating." However, when they were finally done, Kook gave him a tall bottle of green liquid to drink.
"Chug this," he instructed. Percy was hesitant, but he did as he was told. It tasted a little bit like the concoction that Fontina had gifted him, but there was another taste to it that he couldn't place.
Kook downed his and then smacked his lips. "Protein powder and muscle-building seaweed," he explained. "I'm telling you, this stuff is better than creatine. Plus, it'll heal your pulled muscles or strained ligaments or whatever, so you can go hard."
"Oh, cool," Percy said, staring down into the drink. He tilted it back and chugged the rest like Kook had done.
Kook wrapped his arm around Percy's shoulders and steered him out of the gym. "Next order of business: transportation," he declared. "If you're going to be running all over the kingdom, you need a better way to get around than summoning hippocampi."
Kook dropped Percy off in a garage workshop filled with materials and tools. "You've built chariots before, yeah?"
"Oh, yeah," Percy replied, wandering around and checking out the supplies.
Kook grinned. "Good. I've got a meeting, but I'll be back in a couple hours. Have it ready by the time I come back so I can bless it."
Buzzing with excitement, Percy set about constructing a chariot right away. Luckily, Annabeth had shown him the ropes last summer, and he could be pretty handy when he tried to be. He constructed a simple but commanding vehicle, pushing himself to go quickly so that Kook wouldn't catch him by surprise. As it turned out, however, he had no reason to rush because the godly boy did not return for nearly three hours. Percy was putting the finishing touches on the blue paint job when he finally arrived, whistling contentedly.
"How's it coming?" he said.
Percy wiped sweat from his brow. "All done!"
Kook circled the chariot to examine it. "Not bad, kid," he said. "Now, are you ready to watch the magic happen?"
Eagerly, Percy nodded. Kook reached out and spoke a blessing in Ancient Greek over the chariot, and it began to glow. Finally, with a loud pop, it disappeared. Percy's watch chimed.
"Where did it go?" he asked, a little perturbed.
Kook chuckled. "Come with me."
He took Percy to the front lawn and said, "Now, imagine the chariot and press the top button on your watch."
Percy did so, and in an instant, the chariot reappeared.
"Cool!"
"And that's not all," Kook said with a sly grin. "Imagine a submarine."
Percy focused on the chariot and pictured a submarine. In moments, the chariot transformed into one, taking up half the lawn.
"Whoa!" he exclaimed, running up to check it out.
Kook laughed. "It's got five modes," he said. "Chariot, sailboat, submarine, surfboard, and skateboard. I figured that's all you'd ever need."
Percy ran his hands along the side, then imagined a skateboard. Soon, he was holding a dark blue skateboard in his hands.
"Thank you so much," he said in wonder.
Kook waved his hand. "Listen, Runt, I want people to take you seriously. No one's going to listen to you if they don't take you seriously. I'm just filling in some of the gaps Dad left." He walked up and tapped the skateboard with his finger. "This isn't for showing off, though. Don't let it go to your head and get carried away. Just be responsible with this."
Percy nodded. "And don't let Dad see it?" he surmised.
With a wink, Kook said, "Well, what Dad doesn't know won't hurt you."
They spent most of the rest of the afternoon going over all the functions of Percy's watch, then found themselves talking and laughing as afternoon slipped into evening.
"Tell me," Kook said, "did you like visiting those towns as Dad's ambassador?"
Percy shrugged amiably. "Beats studying for my Spanish test," he joked.
Kook guffawed. "I bet you don't even need to study," he said, causing Percy's brow to furrow.
"Um, why wouldn't I need to study?" he said.
"Well, maybe a little bit," Kook relented, "but doesn't it just come easily to you?"
"What, testing?"
"No, languages."
Percy considered his words. He thought about how easy he had found learning Russian to be, even though he could never hope to read it. He thought back to Chiron's Latin class, and his current Spanish class. He caught on quickly with vocabulary words and syntax, allowing him to understand his teachers pretty well, although it still didn't help much on written tests.
"I guess you're right," he said thoughtfully. "Languages do come pretty easy to me."
"Of course they do," Kook said. "You're Dad's kid. The sea unites every continent, brings people closer together, facilitates trade. Children of the sea god have a natural affinity for learning any language of a seafaring nation."
Percy smiled. "That's pretty neat."
"Useful, right?" Kook stood up with a grin and stretched. "You should talk to Cannonball and Otto about it; they're the best at this stuff. They speak, like, fifteen languages. Each."
Percy's eyes grew wide. He guessed, with infinite time on their hands, there was no reason not to learn every language under the sun.
"Are you going back to Cannonball's bar tonight?" he asked.
Kook popped his shoulder. "Nah, we're meeting up at the Salty Lass."
Percy perked up. "Can I come?"
With a side-eye, Kook said, "You want to come?" He weighed it, shrugging. "I guess we could try to sneak you in. Could be fun."
Percy tiled his head. "Sneak me in?"
Catching his expression, Kook's face softened. "I mean, you're not banished anymore or anything," he said, "but Dad hasn't officially invited you back to his palace. You'd just need to be cautious down there. Especially if Try-Hard were to see you."
"Right." Percy glowered at the thought of that man. "Got it."
Kook considered for a minute, lost in thought. "I've got it," he said. "I'll leave you in the royal library until the coast is clear. No one ever goes in there."
He whisked Percy away to an enormous library where the walls were made of multicolored coral. The building was air-sealed, thankfully, and Percy noticed with a start that there really were no people inside at all.
"It's on the border of Encyclopedia's territory and the palace city," Kook explained. "It's, like, a few blocks away. Go all the way downstairs and go through the door marked 'service corridor.' Follow that all the way to the end and wait at the exit. I'll meet you there as soon as I make sure there's no one in the bar who would rat you out." And with that, he vanished.
Percy wandered into the depths of the library, taking time to examine all of the different offerings there. Some of the books looked incredibly old, while others looked shiny and plastic, as if waterproof. On one level two floors down, the entire floor was filled with conch shells on shelves instead of books. Gingerly, Percy picked one up and held it to his ear, and to his surprise, the shell started dictating Jules Vernon'sTwenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
"Audiobooks!" he exclaimed under his breath. Finally, an innovation he could get behind.
He wandered around the floor, trying out different shells. Several were in languages he didn't understand. One was in Russian–Anna Karenina. He finally made his way to the center of the room, where an enormous black stone reared out of the floor, engraved in tiny writing on every surface. He approached it, stopping at a plaque in front of it. The inscription read, in large, blocky, easy-to-read letters, "The Rosetta Stone."
"Whoa," he said. As if sensing his presence, the stone began to glow.
Approach, those who wish to understand, the stone beckoned in his mind, the voice cool like granite.
Percy stepped forward. "C-can you show me Russian?" he asked, unsure.
The writing on the stone glowed bright white, and as Percy watched, it seemed to rearrange itself–which was nothing new to someone with dyslexia. But, this seemed real. After a few seconds, a conch shell came flying through the air and stopped in front of Percy's face. He plucked it out of the air and held it to his ear.
"Introductory Russian," the shell spoke in Russian, then repeated in English. "Let us begin."
Percy sat there listening and repeating for how long, he hadn't a clue, until he snapped back to the present and realized his brother might be waiting on him. Reluctantly, he left the Rosetta Stone behind.
Until next time, the Stone said as he turned his back.
Percy wound down the next couple of floors until he finally reached the bottom and, racing down the service corridor, he found the exit his brother told him about. He waited for only a few minutes before the door opened. Behind it, Prep grinned at him.
"Hey, you made it!" he said. "Come on in!"